Betty Hoogenboom to celebrate 101 years
Mar. 1—GOSHEN — Betty Hoogenboom is celebrating 101 years on Sunday.
Born May 3, 1923, as a Johnson of Middlebury, Hoogenboom has experienced much in her years since then.
A child of the Great Depression, Hoogenboom recalled moving to Toledo, Ohio, for a short time before her family returned to Goshen and she attended Waterford School.
Hoogenboom's first job was at the South Side Soda Shop at age 16.
Hoogenboom, whose memory is wavering, recalled with joy when her parents suggested to the two men seeking to start a business where teens could gather safely, that their daughter might be the perfect fit.
"I was tickled pink when they came," Hoogenboom recalled.
Later on, she got a job at Erickson Pharmacy downtown.
"We were coming out of the Depression," she said. "I tell you, when I worked around little kids where they had money to buy things — to this day, I'm amazed when a little kid will haul in his pocket and pull out a handful of coin. ... If I had a couple pennies I thought I was rich. ... When we would play ball I would say 'Well I've got two dimes, so I'm the catcher!"
At the time, she made just 10 cents an hour.
"I had a Jewish grandma, and learned a lot from her," she noted, especially enjoying when people during the time period would make comments about Jewish people, and she could question their notions.
"I'd say, 'That's funny, because my grandma was a Jew and she wasn't like that,'" Hoogenboom said.
She married James R. Hoogenboom on May 9, 1942.
"I've always known him," she said, adding that she'd known him from school.
When James was conscripted into the Army during World War II from 1941 to 1945, they got married days before he left. Betty decided to support the effort in her own way, by getting a job at Penn Controls, which is now Johnson Controls, in a department that made periscopes for the Army.
"He was in Camp Lejeune, and she went down there," her daughter Jennifer (Hoogenboom) Riley said. "They were married on a Saturday and on Tuesday he shipped out for Europe. She didn't see him for four years. That's why the periscope thing is important to her because she felt she was helping him by doing something for the war effort. That's why she stuck it out."
Somehow, James came back to a fully furnished apartment that Betty had arranged.
"It wasn't easy," she said. "I only worked at two factories, and they were one of them. But the people who ran that, they honestly worked that big outfit like it was a family. Young as I was, 19, that told me something. I never got far enough along that I owned my own business, but being there showed me something about shopping and going into stores and the kind of impression that I'm making on people."
They had two children, Jennifer Riley and the Rev. James Hoogenboom. Today, they have four grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.
"A company moved here with Penn Controls, they came from a big city where they had daycares," Hoogenboom said.
With the addition of the factory, more families moved into the area and a local woman began the town's first daycare, but the need was vast and so many women including Hoogenboom found themselves caring for children anyway.
"I was always taking kids in and I thought, 'Why don't I just start my own daycare, and that's what I did.'"
Hers was the second daycare in Goshen. Mother Goose, as it was called, would later become Brenneman Day Care Center located inside Brenneman Missionary Church, with a lasting legacy today. She worked there into her 90s.
"She loved the naughty kids," Riley said of her mom. "She has so many stories."
James passed away in 2007.
Hoogenboom, however, will celebrate 101 years on Sunday with a family gathering.
Dani Messick is the education and entertainment reporter for The Goshen News. She can be reached at dani.messick@goshennews.com or at 574-538-2065.
